Of Nosebleeds and Other Heartfelt Scenarios
by Mizayo
Summary: Wastelanders often seem to forget that their heroic Lone Wanderer once was not so lonely. He had a home, a name, and a family. These are the recountings of a specific person from the Lone Wanderer's past - one that he won't ever forget. [A compilation of tiny one-shots that will eventually lead to some sort of storyline.] Rated M for eventual M/M-lyness
1. Your Hair's a Mess

**A/N - Just a few snippets about Butch and my Lone Wanderer's relationship throughout the years. These are pretty much strung together, but they can most definitely be read separately if you so desire to. I'll be adding more as I go along, thinking up new things here and there. It'll probably be brought together as more of an ongoing storyline later on, but I'll warn you when we enter storymode. As for right now, I hope you enjoy! ;)**

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><p><span>1. Your Hair's a Mess<span>

Sometimes Johnny couldn't help but like Butch.

Sure, he was a total fucking asshole who seriously needed to get his ass kicked down a notch, but once in a while, Johnny couldn't help but see a sort of friend in him. A domineering, arrogant, fucktard of a friend, but a friend nonetheless. And sometimes maybe even a better friend than Amata was. Still, Amata never tried to strangle him to death, but whatever. Sometimes a guy needed a threat on his life to kick him into a higher gear.

Though this view of his favorite bully didn't really start until he was almost seventeen. It was a little after they had taken the G.O.A.T. and were in training when Butch started to act less like an asshole and more like the local barber. Instead of barking insults at people walking down the halls, he would grunt at them, or just glare. Johnny figured it was just because he would get more customers if he was nicer. Though, there was nowhere else to get your hair done, so there probably wasn't much of a point to it. Still, Johnny wasn't complaining.

The first time Butch cut his hair was one of the strangest interactions he had ever had with the greaser. He was reluctant to even go near the barbershop, but his straight-as-can-be ash brown hair was seriously getting in his face anymore. He couldn't even look to see what he was doing while working on his pip-boys. And so, with wary steps, Johnny had walked into Butch's shop and sat down slowly on the chair, all the while having the angry Tunnel Snake's eyes glaring holes in his back.

"Your hair's a mess," he deadpanned, as if he was struggling with being so 'nice'.

Johnny shifted awkwardly in the chair. "Uh... yeah. That's why I'm here." He paused, fighting the urge to look behind him at the bully. "I, uh... just need an inch or so off."

Butch scoffed, taking steps around behind Johnny - gathering supplies, or something, he thought. "You sure? I can do it up all nice and purdy for you. Put some frilly curls in it like I did Susie Mack," he snickered. He stood in front of Johnny and snapped the scissors together quickly, a wicked grin on his face. "Or maybe my hand could just... slip." He made a motion with the scissors, coming a step closer to Johnny, making the programmer jump.

"Eh... I think just a trim would be fine," he said in a small voice, shrinking a little from Butch.

Butch just rolled his eyes and walked around behind Johnny again. "Oh, relax, Nosebleed. If I cut you, I don't get paid." And then there were fingers gliding through Johnny's hair, combing out the tiny knots that had been forming there since this morning with gentle hands. A comb smoothed out a few tougher ones, but Johnny was never once in pain. The Butch leaned over and measured the lengths of the sides with his fingers before swooping his scissors quickly along the length. He combed the remains out and did it again and again all around Johnny's scalp, making sure to cut it nice and even.

It was somewhere about halfway through that Johnny realized he was actually enjoying this. He liked the feeling of Butch's fingers combing across his head, liked how close he could feel him, like he was breathing in his ear. He liked the little sounds he made as he concentrated. A flush threatened to creep up Johnny's face, but he remained resolute. There was no way he was going to let Butch DeLoria have the satisfaction.

When the sounds of the scissors stopped, Johnny realized that Butch must be done. He turned around in his chair to see Butch staring at his head in contemplation. "What is it?" he asked wearily, hoping to god he wasn't bald on one side.

Butch took a moment before answering. "You know... I could style it for you. If you want." He seemed absolutely enthralled with the idea.

This time, Johnny couldn't help the tiny bit of red that ran into his cheeks. "I, uh... I guess. Swear you won't make me look like Susie Mack?"

The bully laughed, spinning Johnny around in the chair. "Don't worry, Nosebleed. I won't." He paused. "It's not even long enough for that anymore." And so, with a new set look of determination in his eye, he set to work on Johnny's hair once again. The scissors were working even harder, and Butch wasn't holding his hands back either. Johnny almost sank back into the chair, sighing, but realized how strange that would be. But he allowed himself a little bit of relaxation, at least, closing his eyes. It's not like Butch could see it anyway.

But then he felt the strange coolness of a hair clipper, then the loud buzzing in his ear and the vibration against his neck. What the heck? Was it _that_ short? "Uh... Butch? What're ya doing?" he asked warily.

He could hear the grin in the Snake's voice. "Just trimmin' ya up. Don't worry. You'll love it." Somehow, that only made him more nervous.

Butch put away the clippers and walked away from the chair to rummage through his supplies. Johnny took the opportunity to try and look for a mirror, but Butch shouted at him to stay put. He came back a minute or so later, and Johnny could hear suspicious, liquid-y noises coming from behind him. What the hell was he doing? Then all he could think about was the fact that both of Butch's hands were in his hair, kneading what was left with his fingers. He closed his eyes again and sighed, forgetting that he was supposed to be hating this whole process. Except Butch didn't freak out of anything, he just huffed out a bit of laughter that Johnny barely even heard. He was cool with it. Johnny wasn't going to get teased relentlessly. With that in mind, he sank against those hands and sighed again, louder. He grinned a little when Butch dug in just a little bit more before puling out entirely.

"Alright, Nosebleed. We're done." And he spun the engineer around in his chair, pulling him up and leading him over to a desk with a mirror behind it. Immediately, a grin set on his face as he took it in. His sloppy, straight hair had been cut to almost a centimeter or two long on top, fading down around the sides and back. The longest bit was tussled and greased - what he suspected was what Butch had put in his hair last. It look strangely like plain ol' 'sex hair', but for some reason, it looked... really good.

Johnny turned to Butch, digging out some paper money and a card for a free pip-boy upgrade at his shop. "Thanks, man. It looks awesome. I'll, uh... have to come here more often."

Butch let a tiny, genuine smile pass through his snarky facade. It vanished quickly, however, replaced with a much less sincere sneer. "I wouldn't recommend it, Nosebleed! Next time I'll know to screw it up more." He pushed Johnny towards the door halfheartedly. "Now get out of here before I have to shove you out."

He pulled a mean mask, but now Johnny knew. And he wasn't going to forget it so soon.


	2. The Proximity Factor

2. The Proximity Factor

Johnny had known he was homosexual for a while now. He figured it out when he was a might younger, around twelve or thirteen, when he started developing a strange phenomenon in which his nose would bleed in certain... circumstances.

It was around the time that he started developing in a lot of different areas - as it was with puberty. Not the most fun time in any kid's life, mind, but Johnny seemed to have it harder than usual. He had not known he was different before that time, seeing as all the other little boys would talk about how girls were gross and had cooties, or that they were sometimes pretty. Johnny thought Amata was the prettiest of them all, and had no trouble relating to the other boys in that regard. Though when they started to like girls in other ways... Johnny didn't.

The first time that his nose bled was the scariest thing he could remember when he was little. He was in the later months of his twelfth year, and he had been experiencing the tell-tale signs of growing up (aka random bouts of... excitement). He had just finished his required exercise time for the day, and was in the boys' bathroom when in walked none other than Butch DeLoria.

Butch is about six months older than Johnny, and was thirteen at the time, which in Johnny's eyes made him seem so much more grown-up than himself. Johnny was standing near the door, about to leave, when Butch suddenly was stripping down.

He had a natural tan about him, and he was very into his melee and unarmed fighting, and was... toned, for a kid. Johnny was enthralled with this display, his face heating up and making him forget just where he was and what he was doing. When Butch turned around, Johnny knew he would see him and tried to run out, only to trip on his own boots. He hadn't hurt himself but a bump on the knee, but when he stood up, he felt more than saw blood dripping onto his arm.

He was terrified, and had no explanation as to why his nose was bleeding. Butch was laughing his ass off, torso still bare and flexing as he laughed, and Johnny ran, holding back embarrassed tears.

And so he became Nosebleed in the eyes of one Butch DeLoria.

It wasn't only that time, however. As I said, Johnny is unique to this recurring phenomenon. Over the years, he figured out that it happened when too much blood ran to his face - ei working out for long periods of time, sickness, embarrassing situations, arousal... But most of the time, it happened when he just so happened to catch Butch without a shirt on, unfortunately.

Johnny never really thought that Butch had caught on to the string of events leading up to his infamous nosebleeds, thankfully. There were a couple times where he acted as if he knew, but they were few and far between - and knowing Butch, if he really knew, he would have rubbed it in Johnny's face endlessly. And not the kind of rubbing that Johnny wanted.

And some of the cases were quite innocent, anyway - Such as the time when Butch had pushed him a bit too far, and he swore at him for the first time. Johnny was so embarrassed that his face lit up like a Christmas tree and he didn't even care when he lost his glasses as he stomped away. And then there was the time when Amata had recounted her first kiss to him, and he had _not_ wanted to hear it told like that... Oh, and once when his dad gave him 'the talk'.

Others, however, in the later years, were a bit less so. Most of them included half naked Butch, or a fight that ended up a bit more physical than usual. Those were his favorites, if he had to choose. Butch threw punches at Johnny all the time, and usually they get returned quite quickly. But once in a while, they would end up in more of a wrestling match than fist fight, and rolling around on the floor with Butch pressing down on him... He couldn't be held responsible for what his nose did at that point. Or, really, any other body part that happened to respond to that. (Fortunately Butch never noticed _those_.)

The latest incident happened about a month after the famous first haircut.

If he ever had to mention this to anyone else, he would have to kill them afterwards, it was so bad. He was just minding his own business down in his workshop, working on a new program for one of the older pip-boy models. To be honest, he was getting a bit frazzled with it anyway, and was about to throw it in the bin in frustration. However just as he was about to throw a fit and throw it across the room, the Serpent Kind walks in.

"Don't go pissing your pants or anything, Nosebleed. It's just little ol' me." He smirked, gloating in the fact that Johnny jumped a little when he was shocked out of his rage. Butch strode over to the table Johnny was working at, leaning down. "Seriously though. My system's on the fritz." He reached into his jacket pocket and flipped out the card Johnny had given him for the haircut between two fingers. "Check it out for me?"

Though Johnny was a bit dazed, he nodded. "What's wrong with it?"

Butch sighed and pulled up a chair. Apparently he thought this would take a while. "Well, first of all, the damn wheel won't work. In the stats it says I'm _dead_, and it... won't come off," he grumbled, heaving his arm and the heavy device up and plopping it down on Johnny's desk with a deafening thud that echoed through the shop.

Johnny nodded and looked over the device, checking the stats screen and the scrolling wheel. Neither worked properly, as mentioned. However, there was no way he was going to be able to help with getting it off without some serious physical labor and a few engineering tricks. Pip-boys were made to only come off at the owner's explicit instruction. The only others that could were specialty-trained programmers - of which Johnny was a member, fortunately enough for Butch. "So what exactly is it doing when you try to take it off? Could be a number of problems."

Butch groaned and moved about as if restless. "Shit, I dunno. It just beeps at me. Whatever the hell that helps you for."

"It does." Johnny allowed himself a small chuckle. "Tells me it's a software problem, not a hardware one."

Butch scoffed but didn't say anything after that, and Johnny got up to get some smaller tools. When he got back, he realized what an awkward angle this would be for both of them. The access point for this specific board was on the side, facing the elbow. Johnny was going to have to basically scooch inside Butch's arms to reach it. And so, with the fate of the pip-boy in his mind and not the fact that they'd be spooning in mind, he reached in and tried to get to the board as smoothly as possible.

Unfortunately, that smoothness included Butch jumping away in surprise, and Johnny falling face-first into his groin as he stood up. He ended up sprawled out awkwardly on both their chairs, Butch looking down at him with bewildered eyes. "Fuck man, what the hell was that all about?!"

Johnny got up from the chair and was trying to settle himself down, but he could already feel the heat running to his face. "I needed another angle to reach the panel to get your blasted pip-boy off!"

Butch growled. "Yeah, well, maybe you should fucking tell a dude before you sit in their fucking lap!"

"Look I'm sorry, okay? I hadn't meant to do that! Now do you want that thing off or what?" He motioned for the chair again, pushing his luck, he knew. Here he was, ordering a pissed off, known assailant, into a chair. What could possibly go wrong?

But surprisingly, he just sat back down, albeit slowly. "Fine. Just... tell me if you're gonna pull shit like that again."

Johnny sighed in exasperation. "Will do, Butch-man."

The next fifteen minutes was torture for poor Johnny. He could feel the relentless bodyheat behind him, curving onto his back. One arm pulled around his side to keep the pip-boy in place while he worked. And Butch was being surprisingly silent, save for that irresistable puff of hot air that hit the back of Johnny's neck every few seconds. It was killing him slowly.

Johnny was almost done with the locking system when Butch decided now was the time to start a banter. "How much longer is your bony as gonna dig into my thigh, dude?" The vibration of his voice sent shivers all down Johnny's back, and he couldn't repress the shock of excitement that went through him as he felt it. "I mean, it's kinda uncomfortable."

Johnny tried to repress the squeek in his voice. "Sorry. It won't take much longer, I swear."

"What are you doing, anyway?" asked Butch curiously. His head had to be tilted up to make room for Johnny's, but he took that moment to twist his neck around to settle right next to Johnny's, his hair tickling Johnny's cheek.

The warmth along his back and his legs, the vibration from Butch's heavenly voice, the breath on his neck, and the hair tickling his face, and God - just the sheer closeness of his favorite bully - he couldn't take it anymore. Suddenly, the red rushed to his face and started dripping lightly out his nose, then more steadily. He jumped up, his hand covering it and cupping so the stream didn't flood his mouth. His face was on fire and he almost knocked Butch out of his seat with how quickly he jumped up. "I'm so sorry Butch, I-I... I gotta go."

And he ran. Again.


End file.
